


A place mute of all light

by fried_flamingo



Series: The Second Circle [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Angst, Episode: s05e04 The End, M/M, Road Trips, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:13:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7192922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fried_flamingo/pseuds/fried_flamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s lived too long in the heavens, this angel, and has no clue how real life works.  Dean feels like he’s expected to untangle every one of his skewed interpretations and make sense of them.  But he’s not a damn kindergarten teacher and he shouldn’t have to explain the world to this being who is older than time and has seen civilizations fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A prequel to my first Supernatural fic, [The Night has reached its end](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6801889), showing how Dean and Cas became their future selves. Volume one of two.

Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;  
It is so willed there where is power to do  
That which is willed; and ask no further question  
\- _Dante’s Inferno, Canto V_  


_Kansas City, 2009_

The motel room’s air is clogged and dusty, and has settled in Dean’s mouth while he slept. He wakes up sucking on his tongue, trying to summon whatever saliva might be left there, but all it does is emphasize the rancid taste left by the beers he drank after Sam’s phone call. He doesn’t regret what he said – he and Sam are toxic together, polluting this world with their fucked up version of love – but alcohol helps numb that part of him that will always choose his brother. The part his father branded when he was a kid, ending his childhood and turning him into a substitute parent. Sam has been his responsibility for so long that Dean isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do in his absence.

But he can’t blame demons or angels for the self-hate that racks him now. Dean knew what he was doing when he closed that phone, leaving Sam free to make his own mistakes, just like Dean will no doubt make his.

_We’re the fire and oil of Armageddon._  


It’s right, this choice he’s made. The world might never thank them for it, but Dean’s confident that he’s done the human race a favor by telling Sam to make his own way. All their fuck- ups, every shitty move they’ve ever made, have been born out of their own skewed version of family duty. He needs to free Sam from that dependency. Needs to free himself.

He rolls over to the edge of the bed and stands up on legs that feel rusty, shuffling to the refrigerator. It casts an artificial light across the muted gray that bathes the room, and he squints as he plucks a bottle of water from the door, swallowing down huge gulps in defense against his approaching hangover.

“Hello, Dean.”

He chokes mid-mouthful, spraying water over the counter, and turns to Castiel, wiping his mouth with the crook of his elbow. “Cas, damnit!”

Cas squints at him confused. “You said four hours. I waited by the roadside.”

“You waited by the highway until I woke up?”

“Yes,” says Cas, as if Dean is the one who isn’t making sense. “You don’t like when I watch you sleep so I waited where I was.”

“Jesus, Cas,” says Dean, “that’s not what…”

Cas tilts his head in that inscrutable way of his and Dean wants to grab him and shake him. He’s lived too long in the heavens, this angel, and has no clue how real life works. Dean feels like he’s expected to untangle every one of his skewed interpretations and make sense of them. But he’s not a damn kindergarten teacher and he shouldn’t have to explain the world to this being who is older than time and has seen civilizations fall. He just wants… He just needs… But his frustrations are formless and rootless. All he knows is that Cas will never be able to ease them.

For a moment, he pretends that good intentions have won out, and turns back towards the fridge, but all his better judgements were worn thin when he hung up on Sam and this moment is one last frayed thread of patience. He throws the bottle into the sink, spins back and grabs Cas by the collar of his trench coat, running him backwards until they meet the first solid object in their way. It turns out to be his bed and they land sprawled amidst the unmade sheets, Dean with one knee on the mattress, one foot on the floor, pinning Cas by the hips.

“Why don’t you get it?” he hisses, inches from Cas’s face. “You’re a fucking angel. You’ve seen history – every last sordid goddamned second of it. You know the worst of all of us. You know what we are. Why do you pretend to be so fucking stupid?”

Cas’s expression doesn’t change, but his hand comes up to encircle Dean’s wrist. It’s only then that Dean notices how he’s still gripping the collar of his coat. “I don’t know everything, Dean,” he says, in that calm voice of his, “but I think I know you. What is it that makes you so angry?”

Dean pushes back, stepping away from the bed, while Cas props himself up on his elbows, watching him with steady regard. “You’re so cold,” says Dean, pushing away the needling edginess that’s always a by-product of that unwavering stare. “It’s not right. This isn’t heaven, Cas. We’re not like you. You have to change if you want to pretend you’re one of us.”

“I’m not one of you, Dean. Why would I want to be? Why would you want me to be?” says Cas, tilting his head as if Dean is a math problem to be figured out. 

Dean doesn’t have any answers to those questions, so he turns away, rubbing at his eyes with the balls of his palms. He can’t figure out what he wants, or what it is he’s demanding of Cas. He’s not being fair, he knows that much, but he craves something elusive, something that isn’t Sam. Something that Cas, indifferent as he is in his wisdom, can’t provide. Strange that this should make him so frustrated now; he’s always known what Cas is. 

And yet, more frequently these past weeks, Dean thought he’d glimpsed a fragility in Cas, an awkward innocence that made Dean’s weary heart burn with something like joy. In those moments, he thought that Cas might even need him, just a little.

“What is it you want, Cas?” He’s tired and his mouth feels like sand. The water from the bottle is now fanned across the wall and dripping from the counter, mocking his anger. He pulls the refrigerator open again and this time plucks out a beer, gulping it greedily. It soothes his dry mouth, but does nothing to alleviate this weird tension that’s clawing through his skin, and it doesn’t lessen the erection threatening to burst open his pants.

“The Colt is in Delaware, or at least parts of it,” says Cas. He’s still sitting on the bed, leaning forward now. The fingertips of his right hand have somehow found their way under the rumpled sheet and Dean’s eyes are drawn, obscenely, to the sight.

He grasps at the change in subject like a drowning man scrabbling at the wreckage of his boat. “Parts of it?”

“Yes. You were almost right when you thought the demons had destroyed it. It’s been broken up and its pieces scattered across North America.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“If we can collect all the pieces I see no reason why you couldn’t put it together again. But, Dean, I…” He trails off and looks down, bringing his hands together in his lap, and there it is again; that uncertainty and vulnerability that doesn’t belong in a warrior of God. Dean shies away from it even as he relishes the searching glance Cas offers him. “I still don’t understand why you’re intent on this course.”

“We’ve been over this, Cas. Because it’s the only way I can gank the bastard who’s trying to steal my little brother’s skin and kickstart the Apocalypse.”

“Lucifer is stronger than any being you’ve ever fought before. Even Azazel. I’m not sure the Colt will do any good at all.” 

Dean takes a swallow of his beer and looks away, refusing to accept that this fight is hopeless. “I don’t need to hear this, Cas,” he says. Cas stands and walks toward him, but Dean can’t deal with his closeness, his disregard for the space Dean needs around himself, so he pushes past him to the window. Outside, a lazy Missouri dawn is sloping across a cloud strewn sky. Somewhere out there, Sam is on the hunt, alone and hopelessly outgunned. The best Dean can do is try and get to Lucifer first.

“I think you do,” says Cas. “You’re not thinking logically. Let me find another way. I can speak to some angels - there are still those who are willing to help us in this.”

“The angels?” he says over his shoulder. “What, are you frickin’ kidding me? Why don’t you just give them my GPS co-ordinates? I didn’t get quite the full stomach cancer experience last time.”

“Not all of us are like Zachariah.”

“No angels, Cas. I mean it.”

“Then at least - Dean, look at me!” Cas grabs his shoulder and spins him around, and Dean has nowhere to go except backwards. He feels the condensation from the window pane soak into his shirt. Cas is all steel and command once more. “At least consider another option.”

There are no other options though. “Why are you trying to talk me out of this, Cas?” he asks, all anger having suddenly ebbed from him.

Cas’s shoulders drop. The movement is infinitesimal, but Dean sees it. “Because you’ll fail, Dean. And you’ll die. And… I don’t want that to happen.”

Dean’s torn between Cas’s conviction that he’ll fail and his suggestion that he might miss him when he’s gone. “Cas, buddy, I have to do this. And you’re the only one I have left to help me. I gotta know, are you with me?”

Cas looks down, nodding. “I’m with you, Dean. I’m always with you.”

***

_Delaware, 2009_

A shoe store in an out-of-town strip mall gives them the Colt’s ejector rod. After the fight, Castiel sits on a stool amidst the bloodied ruins of the demons’ vessels, turning the prize over in his hands. Two weeks it had taken them to track down its exact location and Castiel can’t help but wonder if the tiny piece of metal was worth all the sweat. His use of that word is no longer as figurative as it might once have been – Castiel has been finding himself subject to too many of his vessel’s autonomic responses of late, as his grace falters in the absence of heaven’s nourishment. 

There are stimuli, he’s found, at every juncture of his dealings with this world, and he’s aware in minute detail of how it affects this body he inhabits. The smell of fried onions in the diners Dean takes him to trigger a salivation reflex, exertion and high temperatures cause sweat to bead on his brow, and run down the nape of his neck. And Dean… His vessel’s response to Dean Winchester is the one that intrigues him most. Increased heart rate and dilated pupils are just two of the physical reactions he’s experienced when Dean is near. Humans, he’s decided, are complicated machines.

The crunch of boots on glass brings Dean back into the room. He wades through the broken display cases, blood-spattered sneakers and twisted bodies without a second glance, but Cas knows he mourns every vessel’s death like the first. “Looks like that’s all we got. Bastards broke her up good.” He takes the rod from Castiel, grazing his fingers and causing a surge in dopamine and serotonin. Castiel curls his fingers into his palm to try and stop the tingling there. “You know it would be a whole lot easier if you could just tune in to angel radio and find out where we’re supposed to go next,” says Dean, tapping the rod against his palm.

The chemical stimulants in Jimmy’s body change as Castiel is reminded of his impotency. “I think they’ve changed the frequency,” he says, “and besides, I’m guessing the demons have warded the other pieces against any sort of angel detection.” He bows his head. “Maybe I’m not so useful to you on this quest as I’d hoped.”

“Are you kidding me?” says Dean. “You took out like five demons before I’d even stepped through the door. That shit is impressive, Cas.”

Something blossoms in Castiel’s chest, though he can’t equate it with any physiological response. It’s amorphous and fluid, and springs from somewhere in Dean’s smile. A human feeling, though, just like thirst or hunger or the need to urinate. Given time, he could figure it out, but this change in state is temporary for him. Whether Lucifer is defeated or not, one day he’ll take his place in heaven once more, among his own kind and restored to full grace. His heart, suddenly and inexplicably, constricts at that thought. Castiel categorizes the feeling as just one more on the long list he doesn’t quite understand.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas has discovered that humans often find small talk more acceptable than the things they can’t bear to say out loud. For example, right now, he’d like to point out how fascinating he finds the drop of sweat that runs from Dean’s temple and down towards his throat, how he envisions pressing his lips to that spot. He’d like to speak to him about how he fears this road that they’re on and is ashamed of how pointless he feels without his powers. He’d like to say to him _Dean, I miss Sam, don’t you?_

_New Mexico, 2010_

Sam’s name isn’t one that’s ever mentioned. Cas, for all his lack of understanding of human quirks, seems to know it’s a subject not open for discussion, and Dean’s grateful for that. He could check in on Sam of course, see how he’s doing, how his own hunt is going. But he doesn’t. He knows it’s cowardice. Because maybe Sammy isn’t doing so good, maybe he’s lost and alone, and for Dean to confirm that for sure would be to accept just how wrong he’s been. He hasn’t said his brother’s name out loud since that night in Kansas City and so the sound of it spikes like a blade when Bobby calls.

“Sam’s in trouble.”

They’re in a mom ‘n’ pop diner just off Route 3, and Cas is studying the menu with the same intent expression that Dean’s seen on his face while translating ancient and arcane texts. Dean had been enjoying just watching him until he’d heard Bobby’s voice.

It takes a conscious effort to remain still, to not move. To not grab his keys and get in the car and just drive to wherever Sam is. He doesn’t move though. He sits where he is and picks at the broken veneer of the tabletop and says, “What’s happened?”

Cas looks up and Dean wonders whether it’s because he failed in his attempt to keep his tone level, or if Cas’s weird spidey senses can still pick up on the fluctuations in Dean’s mood.

“He called me,” says Bobby. “Last week. He didn’t say much, but he sounded strung out, not like himself. So I put out word on the drums to keep an eye on him. Let me know if something’s up.”

“And?” Dean’s throat closes on the word, reluctant to let it out. There’s no way to ask that question and have it answered in any way that’s good. He keeps his eyes fixed on Cas, needing an anchor to hold him in place for whatever’s coming.

“Dean, he’s back on the blood.”

Dean’s hands start shaking so he presses the phone closer to his ear and splays the other hand out on the table. Beneath, he moves his leg just a fraction, but enough to bring it into contact with Cas’s knee, enough that it grounds him. He tells himself that this news was inevitable, that it was always going to go this way. Wasn’t that why he cut ties with Sam in the first place? But part of him whispers that it only became inevitable when he made it so.

“Dean?” 

“Yeah, Bobby,” says Dean. “I’m still here.”

“I got the address of where he’s staying. It’s room 204 at the –” 

“I don’t want his address, Bobby.” He’s not sure if he imagines it, but he thinks that Cas pushes his knee more firmly against his. Dean doesn’t know if it’s a warning or a judgment… or something else. And he’s not sure why he cares. On the other end of the line, there’s a heavy silence and Dean knows exactly what that is.

“What the hell is it you think you’re doing here, Dean?” There’s a slow anger in Bobby’s voice and Dean knows out of all the shit he’s pulled in his life, it’s this that has disappointed Bobby the most.

“I’ve made my choice. And Sammy’s made his. Whatever his trouble, it’s his to fix.”

“And where exactly is it you think those choices will lead, son? ‘Cause I’m telling you now, you do this and it ain’t nowhere there’s any coming back from.”

“Who said anything about going back? Goodbye, Bobby.” He snaps the phone closed and tosses it onto the table so hard it skids across the surface and off the edge. Cas catches it before it hits the floor.

As he hands it back, he takes a breath as if to speak, stops, licks his lips and presses them together, before saying, “Dean, do you –?”

“Don’t, Cas.” Dean closes his eyes and shakes his head, and is more grateful than he can say that Cas doesn’t push it. He sucks in air in a huge gulp and stands, tossing a couple bills down for the coffee. Cas watches him as if waiting for a cue. “Now how ‘bout we do what we came here to do before the mooks find out we’re in town.”

He deletes Sam’s number as they’re walking to the car.

***

It’s not far to Villanueva State Park, but the heat in the Impala soon becomes uncomfortable, so Cas rolls down the window and leans against the door with his eyes closed. He’s long since stopped offering to transport them both to where they need to go. Dean doesn’t like travelling anywhere without Baby these days and, in truth, it’s something of a relief for Cas; the last few times he’s used his wings, he’s landed heavily, often miles from where he’d intended to go. His powers diminish a little more each day and he worries about how long heaven will maintain its embargo.

For now, he’s happy in the car. The breeze is exquisite on his face, drawing gentle fingers through his hair. It’s times like these that make up for the other human challenges he faces each day, like navigating self checkouts or remembering PIN numbers. A cool breeze on a hot day through the window of a car driven by someone you…

That thought stops him and he sits forward suddenly, feeling like he’s forgotten something, something important he was supposed to do.

“You okay?” Deans darts him a glance before turning back to the road.

“Yes, I’m fine. I…” But the thought is still elusive and so he lets it go. Dean hasn’t said much since they left the diner and won’t tell him what Bobby said on the phone, so all Cas knows is that it was about Sam and it wasn’t good. He worries that Dean has committed himself to a path that will wreck him, but knows that nothing he could ever say would sway him from it. 

Dean swings the Impala onto a dirt track and up onto a verge covered in dry scrubby grass. They’ll walk the rest of the way, but it’s uphill and it’s ninety-eight degrees, so Cas shrugs off his coat and jacket and unknots his tie, tossing all three into the back seat. He rolls up his shirt sleeves and feels the sun warm his forearms. The breeze, he’s sad to say, is gone now that they’re no longer moving. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turns to Dean who’s leaning forward on the Impala, watching him across the roof. On catching his eye, he clears his throat and looks away, ducking his head back down into the car.

“Head’s up,” he says, and Cas catches the bottle of water he tosses him. Dean ties his own shirt around his waist and squints up at the sandstone bluffs that mark their destination. “Looks like a lot of ground to cover.”

“The demon we captured said the piece was buried in the center of a cluster of five rocks that look like fingers. I suppose that narrows it down.”

“So what? We just walk until we see it?” He rounds the car and pulls open the trunk, retrieving one of the shovels that sit atop the hidden compartment.

Castiel tilts his head back and looks at the vast expanse of blue above them. High above them, a bird circles. It’s hard to distinguish the species, but Cas envies it it’s flight. “It is a beautiful day.”

“It’s a _hot_ day, Cas,” says Dean, fanning his T-shirt against his stomach. “Really fucking hot.” 

“It is New Mexico in July, Dean. The temperature is typical of the local climate.”

Dean grins and looks at the ground. “Yeah,” he says in a voice that sounds almost amused, almost… fond, “I guess that must be it.”

They begin walking and Castiel knows that Dean is glad of the exertion because it forestalls any conversation and allows him to internalize his anguish over whatever might be happening with Sam. Despite Dean’s untroubled countenance, there’s an inner dialogue going on, like some kind of self-inflicted punishment. Cas still has his powers of healing, but this thing that’s going on inside Dean can’t be cured with a touch to the forehead. Even if he were not cut off from heaven, there would be nothing Cas could do for his friend right now.

The heat only intensifies with their ascent up the hill, as if they are approaching the sun itself. Cas unbuttons his shirt almost to the waist and then wonders if perhaps this is not how things are done when he sees Dean slide a look over him and frown. He considers pointing out that the feeling of the scant breeze on bare flesh is much more pleasurable than sweat-soaked cotton, but suddenly his brain is an overload of sensory data and firing synapses and presents him with the unbidden image of Dean peeling off his T-shirt. His throat dries up and so instead of speaking, he takes a gulp of the lukewarm water; human skin is prone to burning, he reminds himself, and they have no sunscreen.

Eventually they reach the hill’s plateau and the walk becomes easier. It isn’t long before they find the formation of five fingers of rock, clawing at the sky like a red skeletal hand. Dean breaks ground in the dead center and begins to dig. It takes less than fifteen minutes for the blade of the shovel to clang against something metal. Castiel kneels down and clears the rest of the dirt by hand; there’s something satisfying about the feel of it between his fingers and under his nails, something earthbound and fundamental. The container he uncovers is just a flimsy cashbox, the kind you unlock with a key, which they do not have, so Dean splits it open with the shovel. The Colt’s barrel rolls out onto the loose soil. Cas picks it up and squints into the six chambers, now covered with dirt.

“Here,” says Dean, and Cas hold out the barrel for him to clean. Instead he pockets it and takes Cas’s hand in his. Holding his water bottle in the other, he pulls off the sports cap with his teeth and squeezes water over Cas’s hands, massaging it across his palm and in between his fingers. His face is intent and, at first, he doesn’t look up. Then he takes the tail of the shirt he still has tied around his waist and dries the water, wiping away the red soil from Cas’s skin. So reverent is his expression that Castiel is reminded of the Magdalene and her anointing of the feet of the Lamb.

With slow intent, Dean raises his eyes. There’s a smile on his face and Cas wonders if he can hear the acceleration of his heartbeat. “You ever been to New Mexico before, Cas?” Dean asks, apparently mindless of this tender benediction between them. 

It’s a new thing for Cas, this kind of conversation – chit-chat Sam called it once. Castiel hadn’t understood, at first, the need to speak when there was nothing of importance to say, but Sam told him it was a social thing, just a way to pass the time.

“Time passes regardless,” Cas had challenged, “whether we speak or not.”

Sam had laughed in that patient way of his. “That’s not the point, Cas. Sometimes it’s just nice to share conversation with people. Sometimes it’s just nice to be interested. And besides, small talk can tell you more about a person than the big questions.”

Cas has since discovered that humans often find small talk more acceptable than the things they can’t bear to say out loud. For example, right now, he’d like to point out how fascinating he finds the drop of sweat that runs from Dean’s temple and down towards his throat, how he envisions pressing his lips to that spot. He’d like to speak to him about how he fears this road that they’re on and is ashamed of how pointless he feels without his powers. He’d like to say to him _Dean, I miss Sam, don’t you?_

But those are subjects that are off limits, so instead he says, “I stood here once, but the words you had for the world were different then. I watched the Rio Grande form.” Dean’s hands pause and Cas knows he’s wrong-footed him somehow. What he said was not chit-chat. In an attempt, to recover the balance, he adds, “It’s changed a lot since then, though.” 

Dean’s shoulders start to shake and Cas sees with relief that he’s laughing, “Yeah, I bet it has.” He drops Cas’s hands, leaving them clean and cool, and turns to look out over the vista. The afternoon has drawn on and shadows are lengthening. In the distance, the one story stucco buildings of Villanueva village are visible, stained red by rock and sun. “There’s a gun dealer just north of here my dad used to do business with.” He stares out at the sprawling space. “From here, you can see all the way to the horizon. Nowhere to hide, nothing waiting to jump out on you - the shadows aren’t deep enough.”

Cas follows his gaze but all he can see is the blankness of it all, continents that shift and shift again. Nothing of interest but the man standing next to him. He’s aware of Dean’s eyes on him, but there’s nothing he can give him. Creation is mundane to him and he doesn’t quite get it.

After a few seconds, Dean shrugs and walks away, heading back in the direction they’d come. “I just thought it was kinda pretty is all.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel has never known what it is to wish. That wasn’t his job. He deals with what is and what must be; the human craving for ‘if only’ has long baffled him. These days, however, the only prayers he hears are Dean’s, and they contain a plea that speaks not to his divine duty to grant succor to the helpless, but to some instinct within him that he might have called a soul. The prayers become less abstract, less a function that he has to serve, and more a part of him. Dean wishes and, in turn, so does Cas.

_Galveston, 2010_

There’s a magic, Dean’s found, in the assembly of a gun; how tiny pieces of metal can combine to create something deadly, how the slightest squeeze on one of those pieces of metal can be instantly destructive. For the most part, people get it all so wrong when it comes to guns; they turn them on each other and claim that it’s all in the name of survival. They don’t have a fucking clue that shooting at each other has nothing to do with survival – they are not each other’s enemy. Dean had been raised with the knowledge that there were worse things they should be shooting at.

He lays out the pieces they’ve collected of the Colt on the oil cloth, pours two fingers of scotch into his glass, and begins the steady process of cleaning and assembly. The end product is a half-built thing, but it reassures him that this quest they’re on isn’t futile. There’s a goal and, one way or another, there will be a resolution. Cas doesn’t like it, but sticks by him all the same.

Dean glances over his shoulder to where he’s sleeping, curled on his bed with his coat drawn over his shoulders, his breaths coming in gentle, soothing snores. Heaven has been persistent in its snub and Dean knows this continued tumble into the tedious requirements of his vessel worry him. Though Dean offers him words of sympathy and reassurance, tells him he’s convinced it’s only temporary and that those winged bastards will welcome him back into the fold in no time, the truth of it is, Dean prefers it this way. He wants Cas with him, giving him his drive-thru order from the passenger seat and complaining about the water pressure in motel bathrooms.

But this is a selfish want; it won’t help him beat the Devil. Castiel rebelled against heaven because Dean asked him to, and this has been his punishment, yet still he hasn’t given up on Dean. If Dean were stronger, he would tell Cas he’d done enough, that he didn’t need to continue on this journey. If he were braver, he would tell him to make peace with his brothers and sisters, reclaim his dwindling grace and rejoin the heavenly host. But Dean isn’t strong or brave and he doesn’t want to take this journey alone. He fears what will happen when the Colt is finally whole again and doesn’t want to face Lucifer without Cas by his side. In every vision he can imagine of the future, Castiel is with him, his angel who saved him once and then saved him again and again, in a thousand small ways. He tells himself that, with Sam gone, he needs him as a comrade-in-arms, someone he can rely on to have his back when the fighting starts. Dean knows he’s a liar, but isn’t sure what he could ever do with the truth of it. 

Zachariah said that there’s a path been laid out for him since the beginning, heaven’s plots and machinations all converging to bring him to the one pre-ordained end. So far, he’s anticipated each bend in the road and said no at every turn, but he knows the terrain ahead is rutted and worn; it’s only a matter of time before he steps on a crack. 

Dean drops his head into his hands and summons the only word that ever gives him comfort these days. When he feels the hand on his shoulder, it doesn’t startle him. Instead he turns into the touch, and let’s Cas cradle his face. The human contact soothes him more than any angelic healing.

 

***

_Cape Cod, 2011_

Castiel has never known what it is to wish. That wasn’t his job. He deals with what is and what must be; the human craving for ‘if only’ has long baffled him. These days, however, the only prayers he hears are Dean’s, and they contain a plea that speaks not to his divine duty to grant succor to the helpless, but to some instinct within him that he might have called a soul. The prayers become less abstract, less a function that he has to serve, and more a part of him. Dean wishes and, in turn, so does Cas.

He takes to walking. Whenever Dean sleeps, Cas wanders through whatever town they’re in or along whatever highway they’re parked up on. Because Dean’s prayers become less inhibited when he dreams. They become vibrant living things, wanting and _wanting_ , and, in them, Cas thinks he might lose himself. So he walks in the hope that distance will lessen the bond that has wrapped itself so tightly around them. It never does.

It’s by the beach in Wellfleet that Zachariah finds him. Autumn is a promise in the air and the breeze that picks up the sand in twirling eddies heralds a north-westerly that is only weeks away. In the absence of summer’s crowds, the gulls stamp their claim on the land, their cries a sad harmony with the ocean’s roar. In the harbor, fishing boats rattle and clack against their quay. Castiel is mostly alone, save for a lone figure walking his dog further up the shore.

Once, Castiel would have felt his brother’s arrival as an energy connecting to his own, like lightning reaching up from the ground to meet its sky-borne counterpart. Now, though, he’s unaware of Zachariah’s presence until he speaks.

“Castiel,” he says, “the little angel who could – or couldn’t as the case may be. Y’know you’re a hard fella to track down these days.” Zachariah is stark, like a blemish, against the gentle stretch of scrub that slopes away from the beach, his bluster loud and jarring. He stands in his neat suit, unaffected by the cold, while Castiel huddles in his overcoat. Zachariah gestures at Cas’s middle. “I guess you’ve sorted yourself out with a little camouflage, huh?”

Cas doesn’t bother denying it. At Dean’s insistence, he’d carved the Enochian wardings into his vessel’s own ribs, though at the time he’d thought it futile. “The angels will find me through my grace, Dean,” he’d pointed out. But he’d done it anyway because Dean asked him to, not understanding back then that his grace would wane to the point where he is as unremarkable as an ant on concrete. Now he doesn’t have enough juice to erase the sigils even if he wanted to.

“How did you find me?” he asks, his gaze returning to the shoreline. He wonders at the absence of any feeling at the contact with one of his kind, the first in over a year. There is no relief, no fight or flight; he just feels weary.

“Old-fashioned way. You really need to learn to hide from those security cameras when you’re trying to lay low.”

“I’m not trying to lay low. I didn’t think heaven was even interested anymore.”

“Oh we’re interested. Everyone got a big kick out of this little road trip you and your boy set out on.”

For the first time since Zachariah’s appearance, Cas feels a flash of anger. “You knew what we were doing and you just sat back and watched?”

“What would you have us do, Castiel? This little quest of yours? You must realize it’s a snipe hunt.”

His words speak to Cas’s own doubts and fears. He hates that Zachariah’s thoughts echo his own. “We’ve got nearly all of the Colt’s pieces, and Dean has information on where we can track down the next one. It won’t take us long to recover the rest.”

Zachariah rolls his eyes. “Well I admire your optimism, buddy, but most of the remaining parts are in the wind. I’m not even sure they’re still on this planet.” He holds out his hands in a gesture that says _hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m on your side_. “But let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say you track down every last screw and hinge of the thing. What then, Castiel? Tell me the minutiae of Dean Winchester’s plan. Really, I’m genuinely interested.”

Cas doesn’t answer, because he knows, said out loud, the plan is a flimsy thing, built on a brittle deceit that calls itself hope. Destined to fail from the start.

Zachariah nods. “Yeah,” he says, “that’s what I thought. Find the Colt and shoot the Devil. That’s about as detailed as it gets, am I right?”

The man and his dog are gone, Cas notices, the chill driving them indoors perhaps. “It’s the best plan we’ve got,” he says.

At that, Zachariah throws his head back and laughs. “You’re kidding me, right? Castiel, we’ve done nothing but present you with a better plan. Michael and Lucifer facing off in their true vessels? You know that’s how it’s written, how it’s destined to be. And, one way or another, it _will_ happen. Going on the run like doomed lovers won’t prevent that. I don’t know what you think you’re achieving by shacking up with the Winchester in dive motels by the side of the highway.”

“That’s not –!” Cas closes his eyes and breathes deeply. He won’t be baited by Zachariah. “We’re not ‘on the run’. I’ve been waiting for heaven to make contact, to restore my grace, but I’ve been shunned by all of my brothers and sisters. I could have done so much if I’d been granted my powers.”

Zachariah squints at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about being ostracized from heaven, cut off from my grace.”

A grin, slippery as oil, slicks itself across Zachariah’s face. “Oh, Castiel. Surely you’re not telling me you don’t know what’s going on here.”

A sickening unease loosens itself in Cas’s stomach. “What do you mean?”

“You think your loss of juice is heaven’s doing? Well, that is just too precious.” He walks over to Cas and claps his hands on both shoulders. “Castiel, brother, heaven’s been open to you since a few months after Lucifer rose.”

Cas tries to retreat, but Zachariah has him pinned. “No. No…”

“Hell, yeah. You’ve had access to your grace all along.” He shrugs and purses his lips. “I guess you just didn’t want it as badly as you want… Well, you know. And the longer you’re with him, the more human you become. Looks like you just can’t help yourself from falling for Dean Winchester, Castiel. And I mean in every way possible.”

And there is no room for denial, because everything he’s done, everything he will ever do, will always be for Dean. He knows there will be no reciprocation of whatever beats in the heart he now calls his. He doesn’t care.

“Then why are you here if not to bring me back?”

Zachariah lets go of his shoulders, all smarm disappearing from his expression. “Because we understand now the influence you have with Michael’s true vessel, Castiel. And we want to use that. It’s time you remembered who you really serve, brother.”

“I won’t betray Dean for you.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. I just want you to consider how this game can really be won. Here’s a hint – it’s not with some rusty old gun. Have him say yes, Cas. Convince Dean that the only way to defeat Lucifer is by allowing Michael to use him.”

The notion is terrifying and Cas recoils from it. “No,” he says. “He’ll die. A vessel’s soul can’t survive possession by an archangel.”

“Castiel,” says Zachariah, “he’ll die anyway! At least this way he gets to fulfil part of that ridiculous family code they have. _Saving people_ , that’s how it starts, right? You surely must see that this way is righteous and just. It’s imperative that this final battle take place and that the Brothers Winchester play their part.”

And, in truth, Cas had never been able to see a way out of this for Dean that didn’t spell his end. Still, though, he can’t accept this as an inevitable future. “I can’t, Zachariah. I can’t ask him to make that choice. The only way he’d do it would be if Sam were to say yes too, and that will never happen.”

At that, Zachariah’s grin appears once more, broad and repulsive. Shit-eating, Dean would have called it. “Oh but Castiel, that’s the most beautiful part of the whole story. Sam Winchester has already said yes. Lucifer inhabits him as we speak.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean doesn’t know where he’s been. Everywhere. Nowhere. The urge to leave was more important than where he was headed. But now that Cas is here, he realizes just how much he needed him, how much he had denied himself that comfort.

Dean takes off. Without plan or destination, he is aimless in his grief. He runs, but he doesn’t escape. The truth about Sam follows, a rough beast slouching forth to be born. He chooses highways at random, jagged black branches of an ever sprouting tree. But no matter where he goes, Sam has still said yes, and there isn’t enough asphalt in America to make it otherwise.

Then, the road he’s chosen stops, dwindles, and Dean finds himself in a Motel 6 on I8 out of El Cajon. There’s nowhere else to run. So he takes a room, sits down on the bed and calls out. For the past five days, he’s been concerned with nobody but Sam, the weight of it expanding, filling his lungs, his gut, his heart, until there was no room for anything else. It’s only when Cas appears, so close and so warm, that he realizes how selfish he’s been; so insular and single-minded, as always. Of course, then, his words come out snappish and hard. “You look like shit.”

Cas runs his hands over his unshaven chin. “I’m tired,” is all he says.

It’s a gross understatement; Cas is shadowed and narrow, so far removed from what he was. Tired doesn’t even begin to describe it. But then maybe there are no words large enough to describe the slow descent of an angel.

In the distance, there are sirens; some human emergency, contained and meaningless. On the TV, the anchor’s talking about a sickness in Michigan.

“Where have you been?” asks Cas, without demand or judgement. “I couldn’t find you. You didn’t pray.”

Dean doesn’t know where he’s been. Everywhere. Nowhere. The urge to leave was more important than where he was headed. But now that Cas is here, he realizes just how much he needed him, how much he had denied himself that comfort.

Instead of answering, he hangs his head and holds out his hand. Cas takes it and Dean pulls him in close, his forehead falling forward to rest on his stomach. He’s never felt so weary, so used up. He doesn’t know what he’s for anymore. 

“Just… stay,” he says. “Just stay for now?”

Cas threads his hands through Dean’s hair and holds him. “Alright.” Then he says, “I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry I was the one who had to tell you.”

“I’m not,” says Dean. 

There’s silence, filled only by the sirens.

“I need to find him, Cas,” Dean says, because it’s the only purpose he’s ever had. 

“And do what?”

Dean tilts his head back to look up at Cas. “I don’t know. I just have to see him. Then I can make things right.”

“Dean, this is what they want you to do. They want you to see what Sam has become and say yes to Michael.”

“No, it won’t come to that. I just need to see him. If I talk to him, he’ll listen. If I ask him, he’ll cast Lucifer out.”

Cas watches him for a long time, his hand still cupping the back of Dean’s head. “Yes,” he says, and Dean hears the lie he doesn’t speak.

***

_Ohio, 2012_

Chicago falls first. Croatoan catches like a match on dry tinder and soon the world is on fire. Cas and Dean’s journey doesn’t halt, but instead takes them through towns and cities that have been laid waste by Lucifer’s plague. The road leads them to a familiar foe. Castiel could almost laugh at the comfort of it, here in this place at the end of the world where everything is ruined and strange. Crowley meets them in Toledo, an army at his back and apathy on his face.

“Hello, Squirrel,” he says, but there’s no malice in it, not even the antagonistic enjoyment he used to show. Castiel thinks of some war poet he once read, and all his indignant energy, the beautiful horror of his work. A devil, sick of sin – that’s Crowley right now.

“I ain’t here for you, Crowley,” says Dean. “Take me to Sam.”

“Sam’s gone, Dean. But then I suspect you know that already or else you wouldn’t be here.”

Dean pulls Ruby’s knife from the inside of his jacket and takes up a fighting stance. “I’m not going to ask twice,” he says.

Crowley rolls his eyes and, with a lazy gesture, waves off the dozen or so demons that have formed a line behind him. He comes closer to Cas and Dean and lowers his voice; in another reality, Cas could perhaps have believed this was an amicable gesture. “Don’t be stupid, Dean. You know this isn’t a fight you can win. Sorry to say it, but the Moose is gone. Lucifer has him now.”

“Crowley, I just need to talk to him.”

“And say what?” The demon laughs. “You Winchesters and your brotherly love crap. It always did get right on my nerves. And here we find it was all a load of bollocks this entire time.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” growls Dean.

Crowley looks to Castiel. “Have a word, eh?” he says with a jerk of his head in Dean’s direction. “Looks like he needs setting straight on a few things. See the thing you need to understand, Squirrel, is that your brother was practically begging Lucifer to take him by the end. Demon blood had him so strung out that it wouldn’t have been long before he became one himself.”

Castiel can see the pain that causes Dean in the twist of his fingers round the handle of the knife, the hard set of his jaw, and yet he seems to be transfixed by what Crowley’s telling him. “Dean,” he says, “you don’t –”

“Quiet, Cas.” Dean’s voice is low, danger lurking in every inflection. “Let him speak.”

“Nah,” says Crowley. “I’m done here. You know enough, don’t you, Dean. You know whose fault this was. You’re just here to indulge in some of that self-torture you love so much. But do yourself a favor, mate, and fuck off before you smudge your mascara.” Behind him, his demons crowd in once more, black-eyed and poised.

Cas reaches out to put a restraining hand on Dean’s shoulder; there’s no way they’re getting out of this fight on top.

“Get off me, Cas.”

“Dean…”

“Listen to your boyfriend, Deano.” An angel blade drops into Crowley’s hand and Castiel wonders who he killed to get it.

It’s Dean who moves first, lunging at Crowley, who ducks easily. Cas leaps into the fray, deflecting two demons who come at Dean. They circle, back to back, Castiel and Dean against the demon who once was the King of Hell, and all his hordes. But Crowley’s demons beat them down at every turn and soon Cas drops beneath an onslaught. He exorcises another two, but three more are already taking their place, and he’s outgunned. There are punches to his face, his gut, slashing strokes at his back. But Cas keeps punching and slicing with his blade. 

In the gap between demon bodies, he see Dean struggling, being pulled down. “Cas!” cries Dean. “Cas, get us out of here!” 

That makes him move. He summons the remnants of his grace, kicks off the demons and surges towards Dean. Gripping him by the shoulder, Cas wills his grace to carry them away. There’s a convulsive lurch and they’re fading out into the ether, and Cas visualizes the point at the other end. Bobby’s house, he thinks, the place that Dean feels safest. Except he’s halfway there when something judders to a halt inside of him, sputtering closed like a spent candle. He falls from the air, clutching Dean to his chest, rolling so that his own back will bear the impact. The last thing he hears is Dean calling his name.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel misses the days when he could read Dean’s soul. He longs for that lost ability to sense whatever emotion he might be experiencing at any given time, or those occasions when Dean would speak to him with a prayer for help. It was a heady sensation, seeing so clearly through to the very core of him – Dean Winchester’s soul was always a ferocious thing. When Cas first laid his hand upon him, he’d seen such fierce purpose, beaten and distorted by duty and guilt, and yet beautiful for all that. Back then, it had blindsided him. Now, he just feels blind.

The fall hits Dean hard and it’s some time before he can move. By his side, lies Cas, out cold. Dean still doesn’t even fully understand what the fuck happened. It’s been a long time since he’s travelled with Cas like that, but he remembers it as a fluid fade-out and fade-in, almost instantaneous, quick as a breath. 

He’d known something was wrong as soon as Cas had grabbed him; it felt like stuttering in and out of existence, here and then not, here and then not, until they were suddenly in mid-air and Dean felt the sickening lurch of them falling. Cas’s arms were around him and he was looking up at the stars, and then the impact, shuddering through him like he’d swung an axe against steel.

Cas, he’d thought, or maybe he cried out, and then blackness.

The impact hadn’t hurt him, because Cas had saved him even as they fell. And it had broken him. Dean refuses to think of what that might mean, or of how still Cas is lying. He won’t think about how it might feel to lose him. 

_Not now_ , he prays, though there’s no one to listen, _not after Sam._

So he focuses on what’s fixable in the moment, the things he can provide to make things better. Shelter for a start, a place to hide, because Lucifer has their scent now, and though they escaped this time, he will come after them. He stands, grabs Cas and drags him out of the patch of dirt they landed in, to the side of the road. He hasn’t a freakin’ clue where they are; this highway, bordered by fields whose crops are putrefying in the dirt, could be anywhere in the Midwest. There are no roads signs or buildings, so Dean just hoists Cas up, hooks his lifeless arm around his neck and begins to walk.

Then, somewhere nearby, he hears the creaking clank of rusted metal, and soon enough he sees the Gas ‘n’ Sip. Its sign is hanging by one hinge and flapping against its pole, like a prisoner beating at his cell bars, unaware that he’s been left to rot. The pumps are dead, the windows smeared with grime and garbage is strewn everywhere. But it has a roof and walls and the doors look intact. Worst case, if Lucifer sends Crowley and his demons for them, it’ll serve as good a place as any to make their last stand. He recoils from the thought that he could be making that stand alone.

The door to the store gives with two hard kicks and Dean drags Cas inside, clearing a space in the debris and setting him as gently as he can on the floor. The knife across his palm doesn’t even hurt anymore and the cut is just one other to add to the criss-cross of scars there. The wards are hastily drawn and Dean thinks he must have got some wrong, but as he walks back through the aisles he spots tubs of salt scattered across the almost empty shelves. 

When the doors and windows are sealed, he returns to Cas – and almost sobs in relief when he sees his eyes flutter open. Cas groans in pain and Dean thinks it might be the best sound he’s ever heard in his life. “Cas? Hey.” He pulls him gently up, props him against one of the racks and takes his chin in one hand, patting his fingers against his cheek. “Hey, talk to me.”

“What –?” Cas’s grimaces, looking around as if gathering his bearings before his eyes alight on Dean. His face shutters. “We fell,” he says, his voice leaden. “I’m sorry, Dean, I didn’t –”

“You’re sorry? Why the hell should you be sorry?”

But Cas is already pulling out of Dean’s grasp, hanging on to the shelves to help him stand, lurching away from Dean on unsteady legs. For the first time, Dean sees that the back of his coat is slashed open, cut right through to the flesh, which is raw and bloody. Perhaps it happened in the fight or the fall, but Dean guesses the wound is just a glimpse of the damage he’s sustained – and now the guy is apologizing? 

A mess of feeling flares up inside of Dean – something like anger, something like frustration. He’s so fucking tired of constantly finding themselves in the eye of an apocalyptic shit storm, and the thing that makes it worse is that it was him and Sam who brought the whole sorry mess down on their own heads. And now Cas is here, bloodied and broken – and _human_. Dean can see that now and hates himself for being too blind to recognize it before. Cas is human, his grace failing, the last of it spent because he had to haul Dean’s ass out of the fire once again. Because Dean had asked him to walk into the jaws of the beast. Because Cas was too stupid to cut him loose when he had the chance.

He follows Cas down the aisle, stepping through the crap on the floor, abandoned shit that no one thought necessary for survival. “You’re sorry? What the fuck is that supposed – Hey, look at me, goddamnit!” he demands, stepping around Cas and cutting off his escape with a hand to his chest. Beneath his palm, Cas’s heart beats like rain on a roof. 

He braces himself against the wall and closes his eyes. “Get out of my way, Dean.”

“Not a fucking chance.”

“Dean, I can’t protect you now. I’m powerless. What if you had…?” He swallows his words and tries to move round Dean, who blocks him again.” 

“Whatever you’re thinking, Cas, it didn’t happen. I’m here and I’m okay. I don’t need protection, but I do need…” He shakes off the rest of that thought. “Where is it you think you’re going anyway?”

“Anywhere,” says Cas. The pre-dawn light paints him gray, his face drawn. There’s sweat beading on his brow and he looks like shit. 

_Anywhere but here. Anywhere but with you._

Of course he wants to go – he’s found nothing but pain with Dean. _Rebel for me_ , Dean had said to him, _and I’ll snuff out everything that you are. Do as I ask and I will bring you so low your own kind will abandon you_. And Cas had said, _Yes. Anything._

Now there’s nothing Dean can give back. And if he were a better man, he’d let Cas go, let him run, make his own way in this shit-sodden world. But Dean isn’t a better man. He’s weak and stupid, and can’t face whatever time might be left to him without Cas by his side. He should tell him this of course, confess how gut deep his need is, but all he says is, “You’re hurt. You can’t leave now. Let me take a look at your back.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Cas shrugs out of his coat and jacket, grimacing as he peels them from his back. His shirt is matted with blood, but it’s drying now which means the bleeding has likely stopped. Through the torn material, Dean sees more clearly the damage that’s been done there. “Jesus, Cas.”

“I think one of Crowley’s demons got me with a knife. There were a lot of them.”

Yeah, there were a lot. There was a moment when Dean had thought they weren’t getting out of there alive. If Cas hadn’t been there… but Cas _was_ there. Cas is always there. “We gotta clean you up,” he says. “C’mon.” He leads him through the door marked private, which leads to a small corridor with a service door at the end. Off one side is a janitor’s closet and opposite that, a tiny office with some cabinets and yellowing paper pinned to the walls. 

There’s a sleeping bag on the floor and a few empty food cans. By the look of it, someone had holed up here thinking they might be safe from the crap going on outside. The fact that their belongings are here while they are not speaks volumes. There is no safety left in the world.

The power’s out, of course, but in the tradition of people refusing to accept the obvious, Dean flicks the light switch back and forth a couple of times anyway. He’s surprised when the room is suddenly bathed in a soft glow, and turns to see Cas holding an LED lantern. It lights his face from below, softening the hard shadows that Dean has gotten so used to, and suddenly there’s a memory of sparks showering them, grand wings spreading like a storm cloud.

Dean can’t look at it anymore, at what’s he’s stolen from Cas, and all that he still wants from him. Those feelings have brought them to this and to give them free rein won’t lead anywhere good. But they beat at him, like thrashing claws, ripping his guts apart.

The air in the office is suddenly stifling and Dean has to get out. He turns back to the corridor, heading blindly for the service door which seems a million miles away. When he gets there, he hits the bar so hard the door bangs against the outside wall. He leans against the jamb, taking care not to disturb the salt line at his feet, and sucks in lungfuls of air.

But the storm inside him doesn’t ease; it’s part of him now, and whether he likes it or not, fate will drag him kicking and screaming down the path he was always supposed to walk.

***

_Iowa, 2012_

Castiel misses the days when he could read Dean’s soul. He longs for that lost ability to sense whatever emotion he might be experiencing at any given time, or those occasions when Dean would speak to him with a prayer for help. It was a heady sensation, seeing so clearly through to the very core of him – Dean Winchester’s soul was always a ferocious thing. When Cas first laid his hand upon him, he’d seen such fierce purpose, beaten and distorted by duty and guilt, and yet beautiful for all that. Back then, it had blindsided him. Now, he just feels blind.

He watches the door for a while after Dean’s abrupt retreat from the room, not knowing what he’s supposed to do. Maybe he should understand what’s going on with Dean right now, why he’s so determined that Cas stays with him, but he’s just fallen from the sky and unravelling useless human complexities is beyond him. He guesses, though, that he should learn; he is, after all, one of them now. The outside door bangs and there’s a moment of panic when Cas thinks that Dean might actually have taken his advice and left. But when he goes to look, he sees him at the end of the corridor, head bowed and arms braced on the jamb, outlined against the slow creeping gray of morning. He goes back into the office and closes the door, trying to clear his head and figure out what the hell they’re supposed to do now.

It should hurt more than it does, losing the last of his grace, but the truth of it is, since Zachariah’s visit, he’d known this was how it would end for him. The slow ebbing of his grace wasn’t a judgement handed down from heaven; it was a sacrifice he’d made without even knowing it. He’d chosen humanity – he’d chosen a human. The irony is he’s now useless to that human because of it.

For the first time in his long existence, Castiel wants to rage and seethe for reasons purely selfish. He wants to break things apart in payback for the injustice of it all. He’d cry out to his Father, asking why he’d been judged for this. Is what he has done so wrong? Is it so bad for him to want like this? He was a devoted servant, a warrior of merit. For millennia, he embodied God’s will. And now, now he’s been cast out, all for loving one man – a man _they_ sent him to save. He’d curse them all if he thought anyone was listening.

But Cas is no longer an angel. His anger has no power. He’s just a man standing bleeding in a deserted gas station. He opens his eyes, takes a breath and lets his fists relax, and turns to unbuttoning his shirt. The door opens as he’s trying to slide it from his shoulder. Dean stands there for a moment, holding a basin and some cloths, watching him, while Cas tries in vain to read his expression.

“Hey, c’mere,” Dean says after a moment. He sets the basin and cloths on the floor, and takes the collar of Cas’s shirt, peeling the shredded material gently down his back. It sticks to the skin in places, the blood still wet underneath, and Cas hisses at the sting. “Sorry,” says Dean. “Sit down here.” He points to the sleeping bag.

“Dean, you don’t –”

“Damnit, Cas, will you just sit down?”

Cas sits on the floor, leaning forward with elbows braced on his knees. Dean takes off his jacket and drops down behind him, his legs on either side. There’s the splash of the cloth being dipped in water and then the cool press of it against his back, bringing more pain but also a soothing relief. “Is it bad?” he asks. 

“It’s…” Dean’s voice comes out on a rasp. “It’s not so bad as I thought.”

“It’s strange to worry about a vessel. I was very careless with it before. It feels different when it’s not so easily repaired.”

Dean wipes the cloth across Cas’s shoulder and a droplet of water breaks free to trickle down past the waistband of his pants. There’s the sound of the cloth dipping in the basin again. “So… it’s all gone?” Dean asks. 

“My grace? Yes, I don’t think it’ll come back now.”

Dean huffs a breath and Cas feels it at the nape of his neck. “Man, heaven really is full of dicks.”

Cas smiles at his lack of understanding – or his refusal to acknowledge the truth. “Heaven didn’t do this to me, Dean.”

The cloth stops for a moment, and Cas thinks he can feel Dean’s hand tremble, but then it moves on, slower this time. It sweeps down his spine and then, suddenly the cloth is gone, and it’s Dean’s hand on his back, moving upwards, pressing in at each bruise and cut. Cas gasps at the pain, but doesn’t pull away, because he wants to hurt, he wants to feel _this_. Everywhere Dean’s fingers touch comes alive and Cas can’t help but respond. Dean’s hand moves up, in between his shoulder blades, until his fingers are buried in Cas’s hair. With one tug, he pulls Cas’s head back and their eyes meet – and at last Cas sees something there that he can read, because it’s fear and desperation and hunger and want, and it’s exactly what’s beating in his own chest too.

Dean’s mouth falls to Cas’s neck, teeth biting, his hand curling tighter into his hair. “Why did you let this happen?” he gasps against his skin. “I didn’t mean to make you fall. I didn’t mean… Why do I need you so fucking much?” 

Cas would answer if he could, but Dean’s other hand is smoothing a path across his ribs, down the center of his chest, leaving a trail in Cas’s own blood. He cups Cas through his pants, running the ball of his palm down the thick erection that’s been there since Dean started bathing his back. “Dean…” gasps Cas, and he doesn’t know if it’s a plea or a warning. Cas tugs at his belt, freeing himself, then clutches at Dean’s hand and wraps it around his cock. His head falls back against Dean’s shoulder as their hands move in unison. He can feel Dean too, hard against at the base of his spine, and he reaches back, desperate to feel him, flesh on flesh. But then Dean squeezes – just so – and Cas comes in a blinding crash, spilling across their joined hands and over his stomach.

There’s a moment where there is no sound in the room, but their gasping breaths, Dean’s chest rising and falling against Cas’s back, his hand splayed across his abdomen. Then Dean freezes, like a man waking. “Oh God. Oh God, Cas, I’m sorry.” He frees Cas from his crushing embrace and stumbles to his feet, heading for the door. Trying to run, again. But this time, Cas won’t let him hide so easily.

He’s on his feet in a second, grabbing a handful of Dean’s shirt and pulling him back. He throws him against the wall, pinning him there, and captures his mouth in a kiss that almost stops his heart. Dean responds, eager and clumsy, as if a dam has split open and all that it contained can’t be held back anymore. He tugs off his shirt as Cas runs his hands across the hard planes of his stomach. 

“Why are you still with me, Cas?” Dean asks and it sounds like a sob.

Cas stills, unable to fathom how this man could lack such understanding. “Because I rebelled for you, Dean. For _you_. I was never going to leave you.” 

Dean’s eyes are wet, though no tears fall. He draws his hands gently over Cas’s cheeks, up into his hair, framing his face. “You were invincible, man. You were an angel of the Lord. I fucking ruined you.”

But Cas only smiles, kisses him again, and as the sun rises, shows him that, even in ruin, there can be salvation.


End file.
